


Not love, not life, but choice (is all I have to offer)

by smallestbrown



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-03 10:32:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6607486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallestbrown/pseuds/smallestbrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is nothing like a calm night by the campfire or a moment in his tent taking shelter from the rain. And as he sits there, hunched over, wringing his hands over the material of his pants, she can’t help but think that he looks wrecked. </p><p>He can’t help but notice that she looks beautiful.</p><p>(Arranged marriage fic for Bellarke Spring Fling 2016!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not love, not life, but choice (is all I have to offer)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katebishoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/gifts).



> The (amazing) prompt was: "canon verse they get married to avoid an arranged marriage", and well heck who isn't a sucker for that kind of thing. Hope I did this justice, and I hope you like it!

She’s standing her dressing room, small blond streaks falling in front of her eyes, and as she pushes them back she catches sight of him in the hall through the open doorway. He’s sitting on a bench, hunched over, wringing his hands. He clenches his fists together and smooths them on his knees, over the material of his pants. His hair is as messy as ever, and it tugs a small, sad smile onto her lips.

“He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t want to, you know,” says Octavia, at her side. She pins another flower into Clarke’s hair and steps back. Clarke nods, but feels rocks lump in her throat. She sees the boy outside, and everything in her is screaming that he deserves… something else. A choice. Not a decision from a binary set; Bellamy deserves to be able to take his time, and linger, like he does on every page of a book or on the mornings when he wakes up early enough for coffee and can lounge in the mess hall before his shift. He deserves all the time in the world, and of all people Clarke is ashamed that she had to be the one to take it from him.

Outside, Bellamy takes in a shaky breath, and Clarke feels herself do the same.

“I’m serious, Clarke.” Octavia takes Clarke’s arms gently and turns her to face her. She’s dressed in Grounder clothes – all furs and tarp, sharp edges but that has always been Octavia – and she smooths out the fabric on Clarke’s shoulders reassuringly.

“I can tell you think he’s doing you some big favor, that this is some burden on him, but that’s not what Bellamy is like. You of all people should know that. He’s strong, and he always does what he thinks is right, because that’s all he wants to do. It’s the choice he’d always make.”

Clarke swallows and nods, lowering her gaze to the floor before pushing out into the hall. Bellamy shoots up at the dulled sound of her feet on the concrete. When he meets her eyes, they both press on the same tired and forced smile, but it’s grown from so much time thinking and knowing they can’t get anything past each other. This is nothing like a calm night by the campfire or a moment in his tent taking shelter from the rain, or an evening training shooters in the bunker. She can’t help but think that he looks wrecked.

He can’t help but notice that she looks beautiful.

 

The meeting with Roan was meant to be the beginning of an alliance between Azgeda and Skikru. Titus’ promise to Lexa to keep Clarke safe was holding fast, and befriending the Ice Nation had seemed like the next logical step in keeping the peace. When the scouts they had sent brought back news that Roan had agreed to see them in two week’s time, the whole camp had begun to hold its breath. Under the council table, Bellamy had squeezed Clarke’s hand.

He had been at her side for all of the five days it had taken for their small group to trek out to Grindavik, the Ice Nation capital, along with Lincoln, Kane, and a few other representatives from Arkadia. Never too close, but never too far – hovering at her shoulder or sleeping with their backs pressed against each other through sleeping bags and thin shirts. Clarke’s breathing always evened out whenever she felt his warmth next to her and on the night before they’d made it to the city, she had turned in her pack and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, a hand on his arm.

 

“Are you ready?” Bellamy asks. He knows it isn’t a question, but his voice is soft and he has hope in his eyes in a way Clarke has rarely seen. She nods, and suddenly her smile isn’t as forced as it was. He squeezes her shoulder and she clasps his hand. His eyes pass over her to the Ice Nation official at the end of the hall.

“Right this way,” she hears the woman say, and then they’re turning together and a singing, low alto voice is heralding them to the altar.

 

“This alliance will not come easily,” Roan had said. The table was large, covered in meals that the Arkers didn’t recognize; everything was all too similar to their visit to Polis about two years ago. Bellamy hadn’t touched his drink, and he’d pushed Clarke’s out her reach as well.

“There are lots of hard feelings between the Ice Nation and the Coalition.”

“Azgeda seems to have only prospered under your reign, Kind Roan,” had said Clarke. “And there is nothing Skikru wants more than to make sure things stay that way.”

Roan had smirked, and glanced sideways at his second, a man about Bellamy’s age named Atoll.

Then Atoll had asked for Clarke’s hand in marriage.

 

Bellamy squeezes her hand one last time before dropping it, listening to a member of the guard recite long forgotten words about life and death and love and life. His vows are poetic and appropriate, but when he talks about spending the rest of his days with her – “To hold you in war, you, your soul, to keep you in your battle and your stay, to be there for your peace. To be your first choice, and your last” – something tightens in her throat and wets the corners of her eyes. He feels too open, too raw, and it is Bellamy as she’s always been able to see him in his weakest moments, but not the Bellamy she thought would be here, of all places – here, of all times.

Clarke steels her eyes and hardens her gaze to recite a few lines of poetry that she’d memorized:

“There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

Something uncomfortable happens in Bellamy’s eyes; she sees him recognize the lines from The Iliad, but she knows there’s something else. His smile doesn’t waver, but the wrinkles near his eyes do. Persistence is what keeps his happy appearance in place, not some semblance of feeling on either side. Certainly not on his part, Clarke reminds herself. No matter what he says, this is not his first choice, not his last.

This is duty; this is the mantra of “my responsibility” flowing through his blood and his brain, and Clarke knows that it’s all he’s ever let himself think of. It is always others above himself, and as the guard announces them husband and wife she knows that a tear managed to fall from her eyes by the way Bellamy looks at her.

He holds her cheek for a moment, two fingers tucked behind her ear and his thumb rubbing lines near her mouth. He leans down without pulling her towards him, and Clarke puts a hand on his chest to bring herself up to his mouth.

They press together and she can feel how soft and warm and wet his lips are, and when she pulls back the first thought she has is: “I’m sorry”.

 

The room had been stunned into silence for an instant, and Roan’s grin grew. “To solidify the alliance, of course,” he had added. “If my second marries the Wanheda, then we know there will be no going back on your word.”

Bellamy had felt Clarke’s tension in every bone in her body, and he had turned to her to see her eyes grow wide.

“Ultimately, both nations would prosper, and you would have our undivided military support. If it ever became necessary, that is.”

She had looked to him as if it was a reflex, and it was. Bellamy felt something in his stomach click into place.

Maybe it was because she had looked at him for a second too long, or maybe it was because she had rolled her lips in under her teeth in a way that he knew meant she was considering it. Maybe it was because of the way he had felt when he’d woken up to her face pressed into his neck, nose on his collarbone, his hands around her hips and back. Maybe it was because he’d decided never wanted to wake up any differently.

He had raised his chin as if to warn her, plead even, but Clarke had swallowed without seeing the look on his face and turned slowly back to Roan.

“Your Majesty –”

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy had cut in, pushing his chair back and standing so suddenly he had startled himself. If Clarke had been going to accept or to refuse, he wouldn’t know.

“King Roan. But Clarke and I are engaged.” There was barely a pause before he continued, and by the way Roan had smirked Bellamy knew that something like this had been expected. “You can see why I’d be tempted to object to the proposal.”

Roan had laughed. “Of course. Wanheda is a woman of loyalty, I presume.”

Clarke hadn’t missed a beat, though he didn’t miss the tense in her spine as she stood up next to him. “Loyalty that would be well demonstrated by an alliance between our clans, your highness,” she had added. “As I said; Skikru only wishes the best for the members of the Ice Nation.”

They had looked like such a united front that Bellamy’s impulsive lie had felt all the more real. When the papers had been signed and a deal had been made, she had even taken his hand as they’d walked out of Grindavik. She hadn’t met his eyes right away, but when he’d squeezed her fingers she’d squeezed back in silent thanks.

Three weeks later, they were holding a ceremony in Arkadia. And that night, walking somewhat awkwardly back to their now-shared living quarters, Bellamy and Clarke are married.

 

He opens the door for her, cordially, though he’s got on a smirk that tells Clarke that he’s trying to be normal. About all of this. She rolls her eyes and crosses the threshold and takes a step inside, idling awkwardly a few feet from the bed.

Bellamy closes the door and Clarke can’t help thinking that this is the first moment they’ve truly had alone since their visit to the Ice Nation. She watches as he takes in a deep breath and turns back to her. There’s a moment when all they do is take each other in, eyes moving and biting lips, until Bellamy finally speaks.

“It’s getting late,” he says. “And it’s been… a big day. I think I’m gonna go to bed.” He does sound tired, bone-deep tired, and it pings guilt in Clarke’s eardrums and echoes down her spine.

“Sounds good.”

He goes to the other side of the bed and unbuttons his shirt. She looks away and she hears him snort, somewhat angrily. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, Clarke.”

She stays standing, still wearing the short, white cotton nightgown she’d had on underneath the wedding dress. It hadn’t been fancy; a streamlined, slightly beige affair with short sleeves. She picks the flowers out of her hair and lays them on the nightstand gingerly. Bellamy lies down instantly, pulling thin covers up to his waist, eyes fixed to the ceiling. Somehow neither of them quite knows where to go from here, and she knows that the weight on her chest means she needs to talk to him, tell him. Apologize.

But as always, Bellamy begins before she has a chance. “Look,” he finally starts, and his eyes flick to her briefly, though he doesn’t move. “I know this isn’t what either of us pictured. I know this isn’t what we thought our lives would be like, after… After everything.” The sheets heave as he takes a breath and sits up again.

“But it looks like this is always where we end up. Clarke…” He breathes and he looks at her, really looks at her. There are no dead bodies, no wars to fight, and there they are, side by side again. Fighting battles with themselves and whispering in the wind. Hopes and promises lit by crackling fire, by gunshot, by moonlight.

“Clarke, you… You deserve to choose. I’m so sorry that I took that away from you.”

She swallows and feels something squirm low in her stomach as she reaches out and crawls into bed next to him. She lies down on her back, hands folded on her stomach, and glances up at him. His eyes are dark and take up all the space in the room; he leans back on an elbow and Clarke sucks in air, because all of a sudden everything is him and what she’s taken from him. She can’t believe that he could get so confused about who was sacrificing their future for the other, as if they had never taken anything more valuable. Not life, not land, but choice – choice was all that they still had to offer.

“I took it from you too, Bell.”

Maybe the thought hadn’t occurred to him, she thinks strangely when she sees the sad smile on his lips, can’t help thinking of the fleeting moment by the altar when they’d been on hers.

He huffs out a breath as if to laugh, but there is nothing biting in it. Instead, he lies back down on his back, and the two of them stare at the ceiling of their room. When he speaks, his voice sounds so different that she doesn’t think it’s his:

“You’ll always be my first choice, Clarke.”

She doesn’t know she’s holding her breath until she feels him reaching for her hand, slowly, under the covers in the large space between them. Hesitantly, she takes it, and twines their fingers together as she turns toward him, pressing up to his side. He is solid, strength, and she finds herself realizing slowly that yes: he’s what she would choose, too.

She would choose him again and again and again as mountains crumbled on top of them and acid tore at their frayed edges. He would choose her over armies, over threats of life and death and love and life, and it makes sense, those words he’d said before everyone but especially for her:

“To keep you in your battle and your stay, to be there for your peace. To be your first choice, and your last.”

She presses a kiss into his arm with closed eyes, doesn’t see him swallow as he shuts his as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been overwhelmed by the incredibly positive response I've gotten to this fic!! A few people have been asking for a second chapter, and though it wasn't initially planned, I might try and write one!


End file.
